Flood insurance correction stranded

Bipartisan support appears to be growing for suspension of big hikes in national flood insurance premiums. Unfortunately, that momentum is late: A new premium schedule went into effect Oct. 1. And because of the stalemate that led to a federal government shutdown, Congress has been unable to intervene.

Bipartisan support appears to be growing for suspension of big hikes in national flood insurance premiums. Unfortunately, that momentum is late: A new premium schedule went into effect Oct. 1. And because of the stalemate that led to a federal government shutdown, Congress has been unable to intervene.

As a result, purchasers of coverage will be confused and the millions of Americans in the real estate industry are rightly concerned that dramatic increases in premiums could destabilize the market.

The worries are especially intense along the coastal plain of North Carolina.

The United States must get its deficit-riddled flood-insurance program onto a fiscally sustainable, fair and affordable track. But it appears that reforms — approved last year by Congress — may make things much worse, in unexpected and unintended ways.

To avoid disrupting lives, businesses, markets and government, Congress could — and should — have suspended the flood-insurance rate hikes.

The U.S. House passed a measure to temporarily block the increases in rates. A cadre of Democrats in the Senate also sponsored legislation to delay implementation of the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act until next year.

But the bill didn’t pass, and like other legislation in Congress, is in limbo. So, the first step toward delaying the premium hikes is for Congress to get back into the business of legislating.

The potential for huge increases to have expansive impacts is one reason the congressional legislation included a provision for an “affordability” study. But that study has not been completed. The lack of a study on affordability is reason enough for a delay in implementation. What’s more, apparent problems in implementation need to be examined, and if warranted, fixed.

No matter how well intended, changes in the nation’s flood-insurance program did not adequately consider the variable ways that reforms would affect property owners.

The National Flood Insurance Program — which was in the black most years until Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy pushed it deeply into red ink — needs reforms that fairly impose costs where they belong. But changes must be gradual and sensitive to economic necessity.

Those adjustments and a delay in the rate hikes can only be achieved by a Congress that is capable of moving beyond gridlock.

A version of this editorial first appeared in the Ocala Star Banner, a Halifax Media Group newspaper in Florida.